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This Was an Actual Question at Tuesday’s White House Press Conference

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Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher got the opportunity to ask White House Press Secretary Jay Carney a question at Tuesday’s daily press briefing, an opportunity he used to present a partisan line of questioning about Obamacare, the government shutdown and the debt ceiling.

“When I had a heart attack a few years ago, I was uninsured and I haven’t been able to get insurance ever since then,” Christopher began. “Listening to all the pressure on the president to negotiate, some of it coming from inside this room, made me think: Is there a chance the president would be willing to delay Obamacare for a year if Republicans would agree to delay heart attacks for a year?”

Carney smiled and said the White House believes that Obamacare should be fully implemented to address the nation’s health care concerns. Christopher also claimed he has been able to access the online exchanges, a claim not that many people can make.

Christopher then moved on to Social Security and the effects of the government shutdown, invoking his mother in his line of questioning.

“I was talking to my mom this morning, and she asked me to ask you to please open the government back up again,” he said, adding that she is worried about her Social Security check.

Carney argued there could be some negative effects on “the obligations that the Congress has made and we have made to America’s seniors” if the U.S. defaults on its debt.

“It crystallizes the fact that there are real people who depend on some basic things,” Carney added.

Watch the clip below, which includes another question from Christopher about potential efforts to give the president the authority to raise the debt ceiling on his own: